The mythological rape imagery with which the Soledades opens may, at first glance, appear purely decorative; the time of year is denoted by an indirect reference to Taurus: “el mentido robador de Europa” (I. 2), and the pilgrim's exemplary male beauty is evoked by his introduction as “el que ministrar podia la copa/ a Júpiter mejor que el garzón de Ida” (I. 7–8). Similarly the appearance of an owl at the closing falconry scene occurs through allusion to Ascalaphus and thus to the rape of Persephone: “el deforme fiscal de Proserpina” (II. 892; cf. II. 974ff.). Such uses of epithet and periphrastic allusion direct us toward Góngora's typically Baroque display of virtuosity, to such an extent that Pamela Waley has argued that “allusions to mythology lie thick upon the ground in the Soledades, but they are intrinsic to his expression rather than to his matter. They illustrate and emphasize his meaning but are not in themselves part of his subject” (Alonso, Estudios 99; Waley 197–99).

Yet critics have recognized that more is at issue in Góngora's use of rape as a figure throughout the Soledades. John Beverley has argued that “the Soledades are framed by the counterpoint of a myth of ascension and a myth of descension. As an idyl they are Europa: enchantment, sensual intoxication, vertigo; as a history they must be abandoned like Persephone to despair and illusion” (Aspects 112). The counterpoint formed by these different representations of mythological rape can be seen as a function of the modal friction which Beverley observes in the merger of pastoral and epic in the poem (Aspects 62). While the protagonist is cast as a lovesick pilgrim, lamenting his unrequited passion in the wilderness, he is also depicted in a classical epic context in which the violence of contemporary Spanish imperialism is described.